Abstract: Conducting hands-free transactions comprises a server at a payment processing system, a user computing device, and a merchant computing device. The payment processing system receives a communication from a hands-free payment application on a user device, the communication comprising a first transaction token, an identification of a user account, and a beacon identifier. The merchant may provide a challenge to the user and use the response to identify the token and account of the user. The merchant computing device can use voice patterns of the user to assist in identifying the token and account of the user. The system receives from the merchant computing device a transaction request, the transaction request comprising the first transaction token and transaction data associated with the transaction request. The system determines that the transaction is for an amount less than a configured transaction limit and communicates a request for an authorization of the transaction.

Abstract: Conducting hands-free transactions comprises a server at a payment processing system, a user computing device, and a merchant computing device. The payment processing system registers a merchant system as a hands-free payment participant and provides a beacon identifier. The payment processing system receives a communication from a hands-free payment application on a user computing device, the communication comprising a transaction token, an identification of a user account, and the beacon identifier received by the user computing device via a wireless communication from a device associated with the merchant system and transmits the transaction token to the merchant system computing device.

Abstract: Conducting hands-free transactions comprises a server at a payment processing system, a user computing device, and a merchant computing device. The payment processing system receives a communication from a hands-free payment application on a user device, the communication comprising a first transaction token, an identification of a user account, and a beacon identifier. The merchant may provide a challenge to the user and use the response to identify the token and account of the user. The merchant computing device can use voice patterns of the user to assist in identifying the token and account of the user. The system receives from the merchant computing device a transaction request, the transaction request comprising the first transaction token and transaction data associated with the transaction request. The system determines that the transaction is for an amount less than a configured transaction limit and communicates a request for an authorization of the transaction.

Abstract: A payment processing system receives a token from a user device. Based on the first token, the payment processing system establishes a second token that remains valid longer than the first token. The payment processing system then associates the second token with a user account identifier and establishes a rescue code for use in an offline user transactions. The payment processing system then communicates the second token and the rescue code to the user device. When the user engages in an offline transaction, the payment processing system receives the rescue code and the user account identifier from the merchant computing device. Based on the user account identifier received from the merchant computing devices, the payment processing system identifies the second token and verifies that the received rescue code matches the rescue code associated with the user account identifier. Based on the verification, the payment processing system authorizes the sales transaction.

Abstract: Conducting hands-free transactions comprises a server at a payment processing system, a user computing device, and a merchant computing device. The payment processing system registers a merchant system as a hands-free payment participant and provides a beacon identifier. The payment processing system receives a communication from a hands-free payment application on a user computing device, the communication comprising a transaction token, an identification of a user account, and the beacon identifier received by the user computing device via a wireless communication from a device associated with the merchant system and transmits the transaction token to the merchant system computing device.

Abstract: Conducting hands-free transactions comprises a server at a payment processing system, a user computing device, and a merchant computing device. The payment processing system receives a communication from a hands-free payment application on a user device, the communication comprising a first transaction token, an identification of a user account, and a beacon identifier. The merchant may provide a challenge to the user and use the response to identify the token and account of the user. The merchant computing device can use voice patterns of the user to assist in identifying the token and account of the user. The system receives from the merchant computing device a transaction request, the transaction request comprising the first transaction token and transaction data associated with the transaction request. The system determines that the transaction is for an amount less than a configured transaction limit and communicates a request for an authorization of the transaction.

Abstract: Conducting hands-free transactions comprises a server at a payment processing system, a user computing device, and a merchant computing device. The payment processing system registers a merchant system as a hands-free payment participant and provides a beacon identifier. The payment processing system receives a communication from a hands-free payment application on a user computing device, the communication comprising a transaction token, an identification of a user account, and the beacon identifier received by the user computing device via a wireless communication from a device associated with the merchant system and transmits the transaction token to the merchant system computing device.

Abstract: Conducting hands-free transactions comprises a server at a payment processing system, a user computing device, and a merchant computing device. The payment processing system registers a merchant system as a hands-free payment participant and provides a beacon identifier. The payment processing system receives a communication from a hands-free payment application on a user computing device, the communication comprising a transaction token, an identification of a user account, and the beacon identifier received by the user computing device via a wireless communication from a device associated with the merchant system and transmits the transaction token to the merchant system computing device.

Abstract: A system and method to gather and analyze transaction records and demographics associated with a plurality of consultants is presented herein. A consultant is a user that creates a profile and provides access to one or more accounts at one or more financial institutions and/or demographic data. Transaction records collected from the one or more accounts are stripped of personally identifying data, analyzed, associated with a consultant's profile, and persistently stored. Demographic data may be collected from a consultant and/or derived from the consultant's transaction records, associated with the consultant's profile, and persistently stored. Surveys are targeted at consultants based, at least in part, on the transaction records and/or demographic data associated with each consultant's profile. Furthermore, database queries are fulfilled based on the transaction records and demographic data associated with one or more consultant profiles stored in the database.

Abstract: Techniques are provided for evaluating base events, compound events, and logical update events in an event processing system. In one embodiment, the base events, compound events, and logical update events are definitions in a particular syntax language that specify conditions for evaluating input event data. In this embodiment, base event definitions are evaluated over the input event data; logical update event definitions are evaluated by determining whether the effect of any earlier event is changed by the arrival of a new event; and compound event definitions are evaluated over records representing events that have been selected by evaluating the base event definitions over the input event data.

Abstract: A system and method to gather and analyze transaction records and demographics associated with a plurality of consultants is presented herein. A consultant is a user that creates a profile and provides access to one or more accounts at one or more financial institutions and/or demographic data. Transaction records collected from the one or more accounts are stripped of personally identifying data, analyzed, associated with a consultant's profile, and persistently stored. Demographic data may be collected from a consultant and/or derived from the consultant's transaction records, associated with the consultant's profile, and persistently stored. Surveys are targeted at consultants based, at least in part, on the transaction records and/or demographic data associated with each consultant's profile. Furthermore, database queries are fulfilled based on the transaction records and demographic data associated with one or more consultant profiles stored in the database.

Abstract: Groups of services are created based on one or both of the following: (a) what is accessed by each service, and (b) a likelihood of conflicts between accesses (e.g., a database object read operation or a database object write operation) performed by each service and accesses performed by each other service. Groups of services, which may be the groups created or subsets of those groups, are assigned to run on particular servers based on the processing power requirements of each group and the processing power available to each server. In the grouping process, accesses can be biased by giving more weight to object write operations than to object read operations, and to access operations on an index or dictionary than to access operations on a table.

Abstract: Various techniques are described for improving the performance of a shared-nothing database system in which at least two of the nodes that are running the shared-nothing database system have shared access to a disk. Specifically, techniques are provided for recovering the data owned by a failed node using multiple recovery nodes operating in parallel. The data owned by a failed node is reassigned to recovery nodes that have access to the shared disk on which the data resides. The recovery logs of the failed node are read by the recovery nodes, or by a coordinator process that distributes the recovery tasks to the recovery nodes.

Abstract: Described herein are techniques for global synchronization that under various scenarios eliminate or defer the acquisition of global locks. In many cases, the need to acquire global locks is eliminated, thereby saving the overhead attendant to processing global locks.

Abstract: Techniques are provided for evaluating base events, compound events, and logical update events in an event processing system. In one embodiment, the base events, compound events, and logical update events are definitions in a particular syntax language that specify conditions for evaluating input event data. In this embodiment, base event definitions are evaluated over the input event data; logical update event definitions are evaluated by determining whether the effect of any earlier event is changed by the arrival of a new event; and compound event definitions are evaluated over records representing events that have been selected by evaluating the base event definitions over the input event data.

Abstract: Techniques for processing events are provided. In one embodiment, a plurality of records is received. The plurality of records is generated by one or more computer systems and represents a plurality of events that have occurred in these computer systems. The plurality of events is processed, where processing the plurality of events comprises storing the plurality of records in an append-only sequence. The append-only sequence is a storage representation of the plurality of events that allows only appending new records that represent new events but does not allow modifying and deleting existing records that represent already existing events. One or more expressions are then evaluated based on the plurality of records that are stored in the append-only sequence.

Abstract: Techniques are provided for lock management. The techniques are based on an enhanced lock management system that generates a semantic response in response to lock requests for a resource. The semantic response communicates both the underlying cause blocking the request, and information that may be used by the requester to obtain notification of when the underlying cause should no longer lead to denial of the lock request. The semantic response may be generated by the master of the resource, who provides the semantic response to the local lock manager of the lock requester. The semantic response may be retained by the local lock manager so that the semantic response can be provided to subsequent lock requesters, without need for interacting with another lock manager on another node.

Abstract: Techniques are provided for managing caches in a system with multiple caches that may contain different copies of the same data item. Specifically, techniques are provided for coordinating the write-to-disk operations performed on such data items to ensure that older versions of the data item are not written over newer versions, and to reduce the amount of processing required to recover after a failure. Various approaches are provided in which a master is used to coordinate with the multiple caches to cause a data item to be written to persistent storage. Techniques are also provided for transferring data items and locks associated with the data items from one node to another.

Abstract: Techniques are provided for managing caches in a system with multiple caches that may contain different copies of the same data item. Specifically, techniques are provided for coordinating the write-to-disk operations performed on such data items to ensure that older versions of the data item are not written over newer versions, and to reduce the amount of processing required to recover after a failure. Various approaches are provided in which a master is used to coordinate with the multiple caches to cause a data item to be written to persistent storage. Techniques are also provided for managing checkpoints associated with the caches, where the checkpoints are used to determine the position at which to begin processing recovery logs in the event of a failure.

Abstract: A lock manager system is provided that includes multiple distinct mechanisms for assigning resources to masters. Specifically, the lock manager system includes (1) one or more assignment mechanisms that do not take into account the affinity between nodes and objects (“affinity-independent assignment mechanisms”), and (3) one or more assignment mechanisms that do take into account the affinity between nodes and objects (“affinity-based assignment mechanisms”). At any given time, the assignment of any given resource to a master is governed by only one of the multiple assignment mechanisms employed by the system. Various techniques are described for determining which assignment mechanism to use with which resources.